British East India Company's Way to Success

The British East India Company formed as an English joint-stock company that was created to pursue trade with the East Indies.  The company rose to account for half of the world’s trade.  They traded in basic commodities including silk, opium, cotton, indigo dye, salt and tea.  For this post I will explain the roles that Cotton, tea and opium played in making the British East India Company a dominated force in trade. 

The mass marketing of finely woven cotton was an innovation made by the British East India Company. The company imported large quantities of inexpensive cloth that was being produced in the well-organized textile industry in India.  This created a ‘pile it high and sell it cheap’ policy that made cotton textiles available to those people who were too poor for linen or silk and only had the option of woolen cloth at the time.  Trade in cotton was rapid and by 1625 the East India Company was importing over 220,000 pieces of India cloth, creating fast success and power for the British East India Company.   Cotton was such a successful trade for the British East India Company that by the early 1600’s it accounted for two-thirds of the company’s imports.

The British East India Company also created a mass market in Europe for tea.  When tea’s popularity was rising in Europe, the Chinese were the only people who knew the secrets of its cultivation and processing.  In 1713 the company made a break trough when they were given an agreement to trade direct with Canton in China.  The East India Company worked hard to establish a monopoly on the tea trade with the East.   

Tea was only being sold to the company for pure silver and when there wasn’t enough silver to trade for the high demand of tea in Europe, the company turned to the sale of opium to solve their silver problem.   British opium exports to China gave the company great economic success but left the Chinese population with the largest mass addiction that the world has ever seen.  Winning monopoly rights to the opium trade in Java allowed the East India Company to make some impressive profits.  These are some of the reasons why the trade of cotton, tea and opium led to great success for the British east India Company.          

Relevant Websites:

 1. http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/empire_seapower/east_india_01.shtml
 2. https://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/southasia/History/British/EAco.html
 3.  http://www.bl.uk/learning/histcitizen/trading/story/trade/4tradingplaces.html
 4.  http://www.bl.uk/reshelp/findhelpregion/asia/china/guidesources/chinatrade/

Photo Citations:

Image 1: https://wikis.engrade.com/imperialisminindia/4

Image 2: http://simonrawles.photoshelter.com/image/I0000nWXzs19UaPI

Image 3: http://www.pem.org/collections/9-asian_export_art

Image 4: http://isedphistory.wordpress.com/2010/10/02/impact-of-opium-on-china-felix/